'This affair of the unfortunate girl Alice Hatfield—' he was beginning, when Clare rose.
'It is quite time I went back,' she said chillingly, and she turned and walked out. He followed her humbly. When they had passed down the steps he said,—
'I have offended you, but you must forgive me. I am ignorant of English customs. You had talked to me of the misdeed, and it did not seem to be wrong to name the victim. I ought to have recognised the gulf which separates the personal from the impersonal.'
There was a suspicion of irony in his voice, and she did not answer, only quickened her pace a little.
'Forgive me,' he said, in a tone low, and one more earnest than any she had yet heard him use. 'You must forgive me. I would not offend you for all the world, not to gain every end I have ever fought for, to realise every hope I have ever cherished.'
She turned and looked right into his eyes, and in them read nothing but perfect honesty and sincerity.
'I have nothing whatever to forgive, Count Litvinoff,' she said. 'Pray, let us change the subject;' but all the ice was gone from her voice, and he at once plunged into a diatribe against the carelessness of omnibus drivers.
He said good-bye to her outside the hotel. At the top of the steps she turned and looked after him, and was not a little vexed with herself for having done so, for he was looking after her with an expression in his eyes which said, to her at least,—
'Whatever the ends I have fought for, or the hopes I have cherished, may have been in the past, the object of my every dream and aspiration is now yourself, Clare Stanley.'